


Burning

by SquigglyAverageJoe



Series: IjustreallywanttofindawaytowriteaboutredemptionandshitandIhavemanyfanficideas. [4]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, And because we only got the pilot for Hazbin Hotel, Character Death, Demon Deals, Domestic Violence, Fire, Heaven & Hell, Human Niffty (Hazbin Hotel) - Freeform, I got zero confidence in posting this fic, Marriage, Murder-Suicide, Oh Yeah This Gets Dark, Period Typical Bigotry, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Post-World War II, Souls, This Is STUPID, the vast majority of this fic is headcanons and a tiny bit of knowledge of the ‘50s.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:09:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29611290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquigglyAverageJoe/pseuds/SquigglyAverageJoe
Summary: Just about NO ONE has written Niffty-centric fics (which is very much justified since she says like, four sentences in the pilot and all and the pilot has characters like Angel who are also really fun to write) and I fucking love Niffty AND I DON’T KNOW WHY, so I’m gonna write a fanfiction about her. I can’t wait for canon to blow it out of the water!!!————-The stranger doesn’t move from where they stand, but their smile for a minute, looks a little less threatening and a little more amused. She sits up on her elbows, stares at him, wide eyed. “Wh—“ Her voice catches in her throat, she’s too shocked for words. The man—a cross between a man and a deer, a mix between a shadow and static—meets her eyes....Just to double check, she pinches herself.
Series: IjustreallywanttofindawaytowriteaboutredemptionandshitandIhavemanyfanficideas. [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2107536
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Deals and Deer

Even in the attic, as far away from the kitchen as she can get, she can still hear the shouting.

Mamiko sighs—but this time, it was her fault. She should have known better than to _sneak out of the house in the middle of the night,_ and all for what? An hour or two at a party?

Her mother had been right—it had been a stupid idea, she could have been studying, or practicing her instruments, or catching some sleep. (“I worry, you know! You haven’t been sleeping well enough, it’s unhealthy!”) And of course, the next day, she nearly fell asleep in the middle of class, and she thinks she failed a test.

Yes, her mother had been right when she brought up how stupid it was, but Mamiko agrees with her father—it was _one night,_ she’s eighteen, and she obviously isn’t going to do it again, not under their roof, at least.

Her mother said something about round heels, about how she needs to be careful, how she’s not like _some other people that she would not name_ and needed to understand her actions had consequences.

She wonders if this were the consequences of her actions—her parents in the worst screaming match they’d had in at least a year. She shouldn’t be too surprised, though—she doesn’t think she’ll be around for too many more, being eighteen and all. She thinks, if she keeps her head down, graduates, she can maybe find a nice job in the city. Her mother says the city has mobsters, and murder, and vegetarians, but she’s sure, for every murderous, vegetarian mobster, there’s probably dozens of joes who eat meat, don’t murder, and don’t wear those pinstripe suits her mother loathes.

Outside, she can hear screeching tires on the road—she doesn’t even have to look to know who it is, because he always speeds by this specific street at this specific time. She looks out the window, but his car is long gone—he’s always speeding. In fact, just yesterday, he sped away from her in his car, after dropping her off at her home—his laughter still rings in her ears.

He had gone slow when she was in the car with him—she remembers that. It had been sweet. It was a shame he was so out of her league, because all of last night had her too far gone to basically think about much else.

Their voices drift from the floors—too distant to make any sense, but loud enough to be terribly audible. Her bedroom’s too close to the kitchen, and she doesn’t want to hear what they’re saying—but the attic’s too quiet, and all she can focus on is the shouting.

She hears something that sounds like _drop_ —she doesn’t know the context, but she doesn’t like the way the word sounds from her father—she glances around the attic.

She knows it’s somewhere.

It takes her a minute—but looking gives her a distraction, something to keep her hands busy while she relaxes and waits for the shouting to stop before she retires for the night to her bed. It’ll be nice to change into her pajamas, bury her head beneath her blanket—maybe she won’t feel this incessant need for movement, maybe it will stop her mind from _racing_. 

She finds it eventually—an old fashioned, aged radio that her father had when he was younger. He doesn’t use it anymore, but it still works—she knows because she uses it whenever she hides in the attic, where she can hear every agonizing thought in her head.

She dusts it off—this thing _always_ manages to collect insane amounts of dust, every time she puts it back in the same old box she always does, like she doesn’t come back every two days to listen to the radio, to drown out the noise.

The dial’s worn when she turns it—one of these days, it’s gonna fall off, but it’s still on for now, and that’s good enough for her.

White noise drifts from the speaker—she’s still tuning it. This always takes a minute, but she knows which stations she likes, which is whichever one makes her parents sound quieter, makes the noise from the kitchen stop for a moment.

She’s pretty sure she found a station—but the radio stops. She frowns, turns the knob again, but no noise comes from the speaker.

 _Great,_ she thinks. _It’s broken._

It was gonna break one of these days, anyways, but she wishes it lasted just a little younger.

There’s a crackle of static— _behind her_ , where the radio is not.

She turns around.

A man is in the attic with her—he looks vaguely familiar, but also, not really, and the more she looks, the less certain she is that he’s a man and not a figment of her imagination. To be fair though, he doesn’t _entirely_ look like a man—his lips are pulled back in a grin, showing off more teeth than what should fit in a mouth, all pointy and yellow in black gums. He’s dressed head to toe in red, a suit that’s _slightly_ tattered in places, but looks to be more of a few runs and tears in minor spaces than any sort of ruin. He’s holding a cane that looks like a microphone, he’s wearing a monocle—he has antlers, flickers on the wall—

But all she can look at is his giant smile. “ _Hello, my dear!”_

She screams and falls backwards—the stranger doesn’t move from where they stand, but their smile for a minute, looks a little less threatening and a little more amused. She sits up on her elbows, stares at him, wide eyed. “Wh—“ Her voice catches in her throat, she’s too shocked for words. The man—a cross between a man and a deer, a mix between a shadow and static—meets her eyes.

...Just to double check, she pinches herself. The man doesn’t bother to hide his amusement.

”You’re...” She clears her throat. “Who are you?”

He chuckles and takes a step towards her—she fights that small part of her that says to move away from him. When he talks, his mouth moves, but his voice comes from the radio nearby, not from him—and it unnerves her and interests her at the same time. “ _The name’s Alastor, my dear—it’s been ages since I’ve been in the mortal realm like this. Why, last time I was here, I was_ leaving _!”_

She blinks up at him. “...Oh,” she says, like this somehow makes sense. “...Okay. But um, if you don’t mind me asking, Mister Alastor...” She feels stupid on the floor so she sits up and gets to her feet, straightens out her skirt. “What are you... doing in my attic?”

 _“What was it you were doing up here might be the better question.”_ God, that smile—it looks more like a _grin_ than anything, and people don’t really grin like that unless they’re serial killers.

Serial killers.

Her mind’s still processing this. “I’m...” She glances at the door—she can hear her parents fighting still. “I come up here pretty often, when...” She gestures vaguely.

Alastor hums—and obviously, he can hear it too. The neighbors can hear it, but they’ve taken to tuning out her parents—when she was younger, they used to invite her over and she’d sit on the front porch and talk about school with them, but then she had gotten older and wasn’t a cute kid anymore. His gaze shifts over the attic, scrapes over her and dozens of boxes. _“I see.”_ He glances at the radio, old and dusty where it lies. “ _And do you always listen to that radio?”_

She looks at it too. “Yeah,” she says. “...Something to focus on—it’s my... father’s...” She drifts off. “...You’re that...” She hesitates, shakes one of her hands frantically like she usually does when she’s trying to remember something. “You’re that radio host my father used to listen to, back in the thirties.”

He twists his head, grin sharpening. _“Is that so?”_

She nods. “Yes—he’s mentioned you. Gosh, he loved listening to you, said you were a dish, too. Um...” She tried to think. “He spoke about you before, said something like... murder?” His grin broadened. “And kippy?” She frowned—something kind of related, but not quite the same clicks; she _does_ recognize him. “Oh, that’s it—you were in one of my books about serial killers!”

_”Was I now?”_

She nods. “Yeah, that’s it—you were found buried in a deer hunting ground. Some guy shot you, and he went on to murder, after you, like, six different people.”

His grin falters back into a smile. “... _Interesting._ ” He stepped forward again. “ _And what is your name, my dear?”_

Oh, right, he’s still in her attic. “Mamiko,” she says. At Alastor’s confused gaze, she adds, “It’s a... Japanese name.” It’s not like it’s the first time people have given her weird looks for her name, the same way she gets weird looks for the way she talks, and how her eyes look. She almost asks for his name again—she’s bad at this, bad at talking. People don’t talk to her much! “I hope you don’t mind my asking, Mister Alastor, but um...” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s just that... you never answered me about what you’re doing in my attic? Plus, since your picture was in my book, I’m pretty sure you’re... pretty dead, since nineteen thirty three?”

He hums again. “ _Remind me what year is it?”_

”Nineteen forty eight,” she answers. “It’s been about eight months into the year, I _still_ mess up the date.” She fiddles with her hands, trying to keep them busy because she likes to move her hands when she feels _this_ stupid. She’s out of practice when it comes to meeting new people—everyone in this town seems to know each other.

Except her. So people just don’t talk to her just about ever.

” _Well, my dear_ _.”_ He gestures to the attic with his cane—definitely a microphone, she thinks, on the top of it. _“Obviously I’m not supposed to be_ up _here.”_

”You mean in my attic?” Something seems to click. “...Wait, do you mean you’re like...” She just sort of points downwards. “...Because you’re dead? You’re...” His grin widens again. “Oh, that’s messed up. You were murdered and wound up in Hell? They don’t um, torture sinners down there for all eternity, right?”

He chuckles, low—there’s a pop of static. “ _It’s nothing you should worry your head about—obviously, a little darling like you won’t need to worry about eternal damnation. Yet.”_ He laughs—she’s unsure if she should be laughing too.

”Is it all fire and brimstone?” She asks.

 _“Not all fire and brimstone,”_ he says. _“But plenty of fire and brimstone—and red. A fair bit different from what Sunday school might have taught you.”_

”Oh, I don’t go to church,” she says, and then feels stupid saying that. Outside, she hears the rev of a motor again, glances just in time to see _his_ scarlet, ramped up machine speeding down the street and her heart skips a beat. Alastor follows her gaze to the window.

Michael goes to church. Michael’s also one of the smartest people at school, and is definitely the most charming, and by far the most handsome. She thinks about how he smelled like bourbon and brown sugar and leather last night, and she swears to god, her knees almost give out with only her thoughts.

Alastor tuts. “ _I suppose modernity would be taking over up here as well,”_ he says.

”Didn’t they have cars in the thirties?” She asks, and then feels even _stupider,_ because _yeah,_ the thirties had cars.

 _”The twenties also had cars,”_ Alastor affirms.

”...Nice,” she says. “They’re getting more popular, they’re only going to get better, I guess—pretty loud, though, especially, well, _his_.” There’s a beep—her heart skips a beat and she tries to keep the rising blush off of her face, because _Goddamnit,_ couldn’t she act normal for _once?_

” _You know that man in the car?_ ”

She looks down at the floor. “Sort of. We went to school together, but we both graduated not too long ago, and then I went to some party the other night—“ Last night, she couldn’t talk, _ugh._ “And we finally got to talking before he dropped me off at home.” Her silly little schoolgirl crush is obvious. She’s stupid. She’s so, so stupid. “That’s actually what my parents are arguing about, I broke curfew and my mother wants me to go to college and stuff now, and...” She feels the need to defend herself. “It was just one night. I didn’t even do anything—didn’t drink or do drugs or whatever she thinks people do at parties, and I don’t _really_ plan on doing anything like it again, but it...it was nice, it was a nice change.” He had looked at her like she was the prettiest girl in the room, but she had felt like the weirdest one. People had barely spared her a glance. She felt like she didn’t belong in there. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”

He’s grinning again. _“You seem rather smitten with him.”_

Who wouldn’t be? “I guess I am,” she admits. “I’ve never done anything like that before, it was just... so nice, I... He was nice. I don’t know, my mom tells me marriage is terrible, but with a guy that nice? It couldn’t be half bad, could it?”

 _”It’s been a while since I’ve done this, but I’m certain you’d be interested,”_ he says, and that snaps her out of her schoolgirl crush enough to look at him and pay attention.

”Interested in what?”

” _My dear_ ,” he says. “ _There’s a reason demons aren’t supposed to be in the world of the living—we’re much too powerful. But that doesn’t always stop us from coming up here.”_

”Powerful?” She questions. “Can you like, raise the dead, or... kill someone? I feel like that’s what usually happens in stories about demons.”

He chuckles—at least she’s amusing him. “ _I can kill someone, but I’m not really up here for that reason. No, no, my powers are...”_ He looks entertained, staring her down—if he’s trying to intimidate her, it’s working, but this is the longest conversation she’s had in awhile, so she’s fine with it. “ _...quite difficult to explain, especially to people who aren’t demons.”_ It’s like the air around them, the space of the attic is... _vibrating._ Buzzing and warm and... _weird._ Something in the back of her mind whispers she’s having a fever dream.

”Is there a lot of demons in Hell?” She asks.

” _Too many demons in Hell,_ ” Alastor assures her. “ _And for twenty four hours, once a year, angels descend and drive us into hiding while they slaughter all who remain outside, to keep things from getting too crowded.”_

”Oh, god, that’s horrible.”

 _”Yes—it was meant to be horrible. It’s no easy task to kill a demon—demons are, by nature, near indestructible, powerful.”_ His smile seems less amused right now, more... satisfied. “ _And I take pride in the amount of power I’ve gained throughout the years.”_

”Gained?” She asks. It could mean a lot of things—her mind’s racing, but in a nicer way, one better than the way it does when she’s up here alone with her thoughts. “Do you mean, like... absorb. Can you absorb power from other demons? Like a sponge? That’d be cool.”

 _“I’ll keep it in mind to try that,”_ Alastor responds, but Mamiko doesn’t even know what absorbing someone’s power would entail. She was just thinking about weird stories she had read. Sometimes, stories just kind of blend together in your head, each one a thread to get tangled with another, until you just have a thousand multicolored knots rattling around in your skull, and you don’t know where one ends or where one begins—but... maybe that’s just a her problem. (And maybe she spends too much time trying to sew?) “ _You’d be... surprised what exactly demonic power can do in the mortal world.”_

That sounds vaguely threatening. “...What _can_ it do?” She asks.

He chuckles, again. “ _Just about_ a n y t h i n g .” On the last word, his voice didn’t seem to come from the radio, but from all around, like it was coming from the walls and something about it had her jumping—she keeps turning to the radio before turning back to Alastor. “ _Up here, anyways.”_ He looks at her, still turning. “... _Is there a reason you keep shifting like that?”_

”I keep feeling like the radio’s talking to me, and like I’m ignoring it, but... you’re talking to me, right? Not the radio?”

” _No, dear—If it helps at all, I can make my voice come from my microphone instead of the radio._ ” He pushes his weird cane (with the old fashioned microphone on top of it) towards her. _“Does this help at all?”_ His microphone says, and then it has an _eye_ and it’s _looking at her,_ and she jerks herself backwards, hand stifling a scream.

Sound carries pretty well in the house—if her parents heard her scream, they’re ignoring her. If they didn’t, it’s a good thing this man means her no harm! ...Probably. Mamiko guesses she doesn’t know for sure, but she thinks, if this man-deer-demon was in here to maim, rape, kill, or torture her, he wasn’t doing a very good job.

Alastor laughs at her. ” _The radio then?”_

 _”_ The radio,” she says. There’s a click—the eye on his cane is still on her, but since it’s not talking, it’s less like it’s a living thing, and more like a super cool ornament, and Mamiko tells herself to keep her gaze on Alastor. “...What was it you were saying?” She asked. “About the _anything_ bit?”

His smile seems to reach his eyes suddenly. “ _My dear—“_ He’s called her that a lot. It’s kind of weird, but she doesn’t think she minds it, actually! “— _how would you like to make a deal with me?_ ”

She clasps her hands behind her back, rocks on her heels, rocks back to her toes. “A deal?”

 _”An arrangement of sorts.”_ There’s the roaring motor again—it makes her heart skip a beat. She’s a wreck. Michael probably isn’t the type to drop everything to get dizzy with a dame, he probably barely remembers her, but oh, _God,_ she wants him to.

Alastor’s voice continues behind her. _“I get the feeling that there’s something you want.”_

...Very badly. There’s something she wants more than she has ever wanted anything in the entirety of her life, something that her very soul seems to call out for. She can feel her face heat up. “...Is it that obvious?” She asks.

Alastor’s still smiling—maybe, instead of noting it, she should note when he doesn’t smile or something, because he’s been smiling for the conversation in it’s entirety. “Uh...” She should say something else, right? “...Um... What sort of arrangement are we talking about, I mean...” She pulls at a hangnail, purses her lips before continuing. “I mean, I’ve like, heard songs and read stories and stuff about making deals with devils and demons, and it always seems to be a bad idea. Like... What exactly do you want in exchange?”

Casually, Alastor responds, _“Your eternal soul and it’s enslavement to my every whim,_ ” face split wide like this is a normal, exciting event.

Her blood runs cold—not because of how... _bad_ that would be, but because right now, she doesn’t care how bad a deal is, that’s how bad she has it, she is head over heels in love with this man, and that loud ass machine of his, and his perfect smiles, and she’d sell her soul to get another glimpse of his smile.

But Alastor laughs. “ _But an eternity is a bit much for a small favor like the one you want,”_ he says, because he knows what she wants. “ _No, not an eternity—what about a century?”_

”A century?” She asks. “Do demons um... live... forever? Are they immortal?”

 _”Unless one gets killed by an Exterminator—those angels I mentioned earlier? But other than that, yes. Just one century out of what I can only hope would be multiple for you.”_ What was one century to an eternity, she wondered. It couldn’t be much. _“One century working for me in Hell._ ”

She frowns. “Does that mean I’d go to Hell?” She asks. “I mean...I think I kind of expect to go to Hell, I feel like a bad person, you know? But if someone makes a deal with you and they’re supposed go up to Heaven—there is a Heaven, right?” Alastor nods. “If someone makes a deal with you, and they’re supposed to go up to Heaven, but they sold their soul to you, what happens then? It’s the soul that’s supposed to move onto whatever afterlife, right? Can you just summon souls you own from Heaven when you need them? Does the act of selling your soul condemn you to Hell?”

Alastor tilts his head, looking at her closer. “ _I see we have many questions—if you have too many reservations, you shouldn’t make a deal. There’s no reversing these sorts of deals.”_

No—that’s not what she wanted. “I’m... not saying _no._ I just... I have a lot of questions, don’t people usually have questions when they find demons in their attic?”

He hums. “ _I can’t say for sure—they usually run away screaming.”_ Canned laughter sounds from his microphone, as if he carries an audience in his cane. _“I’m afraid I only have so many answers for you, my dear—I’ve never made a deal with someone who hasn’t shown up in Hell, but whether that means I make deals with people bound to become demons or if selling your soul to a demon always puts a soul in Hell, I can’t say.”_ He rights his head to look at her again, he has to look down at her, because he’s seven feet tall, but it makes her feel like a child, and she immediately wants to tell him that she’s not. She’s eighteen. The oldest she’s ever been—so, she’s an adult, and therefore, is mature enough to make her own decisions, even big, _(after)_ life-altering decisions like this. “ _What makes a darling like you think they’ll manage to wind up in Hell?”_

She squirms beneath his gaze. “I think I’m a bad person,” she says. “I mean... there’s something... _wrong_ with me, I don’t know what, but something.” Alastor hums. “...I know this is probably just... the lamest thing you’ve ever heard, probably one of the lamest deals you’ve ever made with anyone, but...” She glances back at the window, like his car’s gonna be out there—she can remember how close they were before she got out of his car, the way his breath felt on her skin. For a minute there, she had thought he was gonna kiss her and then she was standing on the curb and he peeled off into the night, leaving her there, her heart pounding in her chest. “...I can’t put into words how badly I want this.”

” _Want what?”_ He asks.

Her breath almost catches in her throat. “I... don’t even know. To date him? Marry him? Get the Hell out of this house and find a nice home in the city.” She almost laughs at her choice of words—talking with a demon in her attic, about Hell and souls. “...I know that’s the... _worst_ thing to sell your soul for.”

He chuckles again—there must be a lot of amusement in people selling their souls, in others being desperate. _”Do you believe people who trade their souls for wealth, fortune, material possessions are any better?”_

”You... think I’m a step above that?”

_”I think anything you can trade your soul for is on the same level—can anything mean anything if you pay the same price for it all?”_

She hopes that’s a rhetorical question. She doesn’t think she has an answer. She shifts on her feet awkwardly. “What exactly... happens?” She asks. “Like, I mean... If I... agree to trade my soul, what do you... _do?”_ Alastor doesn’t answer immediately. “I mean, it’s not gonna... um... _hurt him_ , is it?”

Alastor laughs—but she’s serious. She’s not gonna be one of those people, one of those people who hurts the people she loves. Something’s wrong with her, but... not like that. It’s a different sort of _wrongness,_ one she thinks is inside her, something broken, something _bad,_ and she wants it inside her, and not seeping into her actions or anything like that. Whatever’s wrong with her, it’s a _her_ problem, not anyone else’s. _“I don’t think that’s how it works, my dear._ ”

”Oh,” she says. Her face heats up—she’s stupid, _she’s so stupid._ “...Okay. So... Just my soul, then?”

She doesn’t think she even understands really what a soul is, but here she is, willing to give it up. Alastor reaches out a hand. “ ** _We have a deal then?_** ”

She should need to think about this—but she’s never wanted anything like she has this, and she’d tear herself open to pull out her soul and hand it over to Alastor if that’s what she had to do.

Mamiko grasps his hand firmly with both of her’s eager, desperate. Something in the air crackles, something pops—and then it’s over.

She looks down at her hand and then back up at him. “...I’m not gonna regret this, am I?” She asks. “This-This seems to be one of those things that the main characters in stories regret, but I’m...” She realizes she’s too genre savvy for this—and anyone else in her position, she’d think that it is a bad idea, but _her?_ With something like _this?_

She couldn’t regret it. She’d never regret something like this. She _needed_ this, in ways she didn’t think her words could understand, with even the only words she could find, the strongest she could come up with too strong for her tongue to convey and too weak to make it clear, even then.

At first, nothing changes. Alastor looks her over, _“Most deals last an eternity—you’ll only be regretting it a century, once you die.”_

She thinks about this for a moment, her mind drifts to the stories she’s read. “I don’t have to-to offer collateral or something? In the stories, you usually need to offer collateral—I don’t want to give like, an arm or a leg or something, but you can take an eye if you want.”

He’s looking at her like she’s stupid, or maybe he’s concerned, or maybe it’s both. _“I’ll take you at your word. Don’t fear, my dear—if you forget about our deal by the time your death comes around, I’ll find a way to remind you of it.”_

It sounds vaguely threatening, but she’s the one who sold her soul.

Outside, Michael’s car speeds by and comes to such a sudden stop outside her house, she half expects to see Michael flying through the windshield. A moment’s pause—and then he steps out of his car, leans up against it—like he’s waiting for something.

Her heart skips a beat.

The window opens—no one’s touched it, but it flies open, and either the sound or the movement attracts Michael’s attention, and he looks up, through the window and straight at her (at least, she hopes it’s for her and not the deer-man-demon looming over her), and smiles.

Her parents don’t hear her leave the attic. They don’t hear her coming down the stairs, or opening the front door or closing it—they’re not even arguing still. They’re just shouting.

If Michael hears them, he doesn’t say anything about it. “Hi,” she greets awkwardly.

His smile seems to brighten. “Mamiko?”

”Hi,” she says again, and then, “You have a nice car. I mean, now that I can see it—I mean, I saw it last night, but now that it’s day—“ She pauses, continues, slowly coming to hate how rushed her words come out, like if she doesn’t say them now, she’ll never say them again. “—I saw it last night, I was _in_ it. Thanks for driving me home last night, by the way.”

”It wasn’t a problem,” he says, casually, like he doesn’t mind her stumbling over words for what felt like a century. (She bets a century will feel longer than that, but it sure didn’t feel quick.) “I’m always driving by here anyway.” She has to shift on her feet, so she doesn’t block her knees—she’s done that before, and she passed out, it wasn’t any fun. “Whatever hangover cure people recommend, it doesn’t work in comparison to a fast drive around the block.”

She giggles. “Is... there a reason you stopped in front of my house? Not that I mind or anything, I’m glad to see you, _IthinkIwanttomarryyouandhaveyourbabies.”_

He leans back against his car, a bit too relaxed to make Mamiko think he heard the bit about having his babies, but he’s still smiling—it’s gentler than Alastor’s was in the attic, like he’s worried he’s going to scare her away. His gaze remains on her, even as he gestures to her house, looming over them. “Some dolly lives in there—real pretty, we talked last night, and I’m just working up the courage to claim the honey cooler she promised me last night.”

She is absolutely _giddy_ , her knees have turned into jelly. She giggles, “Alright, I’ll send my sister right out.” He throws his head back in a laugh, and she laughs too before babbling uselessly, “I’m joking, my sister’s been dead for ten years.”

”So on top of being a knockout, you got a sense of humor too?” He says. “You’re the whole package, aren’t you?”

”Should’ve met my sister, she was a real cute kid, smart too—now she’s dead.” God. She sold her soul to make a fool out of herself. She can feel a pair of eyes on her, (a pair that doesn’t seem to be Michael’s dreamy green ones, peering straight through her body, into the depths of a soul that might not really be her’s anymore) but can’t decide if they’re the ones she feels when she’s paranoid and embarrassed or a real pair. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”

She rambles a lot. It annoys her parents to no end—they had assumed she’d grow out of it as a kid, but then her sister died, and she was eight, and then nine and ten and she kept on rambling, talking a mile a minute to cover up how quiet the house had become. “It’s fine,” Michael says, grinning—the radio in his car, that’s been completely silent until now, gives a pop of static before falling back into quiet. “You’re cute when you ramble.”

She giggles. Her cheeks burn. She somehow hasn’t ruined this completely.

She wishes she lingered in the attic a moment longer, if only to thank Alastor. “So about that honey cooler...”


	2. Glass

The next few weeks, they move so fast, everything blurs together—but they learn a lot about each other. Michael learns about her love for horror and crime stories, knows she can play the guitar, and manages to piece together that sometimes, her father disappears for a week or two, and every time, her and her mother wonder if he’s dead only or him to come back for a week like nothing’s changed.

Sometimes there’s warnings about it—like, he’ll get into a fight with her mother. He’ll pat her head like she’s a kid again and smile sadly. He’ll stay up later at night than he really should.

It’s all immediately followed by her mother panicking. And then she gives her a lecture about how terrible marriage is, how she can’t start meeting guys yet—every time, Mamiko asks what she expects her to do, but it’s obvious there’s nothing else but marriage. She doesn’t think she has a place in the work force. She doesn’t think college would do much for her. And she _wants_ to get married, she kind of sold her soul she wanted it so bad, but her mother is...

...At least it looks like she’s caring about something.

She spends less time at home, whenever possible and gets to know Michael—she learns he laughs a lot, but smiles more than that. And he likes his women short. And he wants to study Russian literature. And there hasn’t been a single competition or challenge in his life he hasn’t won first place in...

And he has a penchant for a good drink. A... large penchant for a good drink.

So large in fact, he appreciates mediocre drinks in large qualities. 

Every time they talk, he offers her something—beer, wine, whiskey, whatever, and every time she refuses. Not because of some moral standpoint, or even a distaste for them, but because she doesn’t imagine enjoying them half as much as Michael does, and why would she take something away from him if he’ll enjoy it more? She could never.

She’s been uncharacteristically quiet for a while, but she’s decided she’s done mulling it over in her head, goes out and says it, “My parents are catching on.” They’re in his car—it’s where they spend most of their time together, a way to make sure her parents don’t see her, a way to be alone together. Dust glints in the sunlight shining through the windshield. His hands are warm. He smells like whiskey.

“Yeah?” He shifts, holds her hand and gives it a firm squeeze that makes butterflies swarm from her stomach into her chest. “That a bad thing?”

Maybe. It’s hard to tell. “I want you to meet them,” she tells him. “I want them to like you.”

”Don’t you like me, Mamiko?” He asks.

Yes—so much so, she wants her parents too. “More than anything,” she says, a hundred percent truthful and a thousand percent in love.

”That’s all that matters to me, doll.”

“But it matters to me,” she persists. Michael rolls his eyes and glances out the window—immediately, she fears she’s done something, and he’s angry, and she’s been too weird about this all, and he’s lost interest, and she can forget about dating him now, it’s over—those butterflies that are in her chest have crawled onto her lungs, their legs tickling her and tugging at her heartstrings, and she feels like she can’t breathe, but Michael turns back to her and cups her face gently with his palms. “Michael,” she breathes out.

”If it matters that much to you,” he says. “Then I’d love to meet them.” It’s simple, but it makes her heart soar.

She wasn’t anticipating her father to be home, but it was more of a pleasant surprise than anything. Despite his tendency to disappear from the house and her life for extended periods of time, he also had a tendency to be more reasonable than her mother sometimes.

Her parents look over Michael, a calculated examination as he sits beside her. They’re holding hands—her mother’s scowling, her father’s face is blank. She wrings her hands. “...You guys have been quiet for... the last ten minutes.” A beat. “...Can you say something? Please?”

Her mother’s voice is cold. “How long?”

”Not long!” She says. “Just... maybe... three weeks?” Another beat. “I wanted to tell you sooner, really, but I was worried you’d react like this.”

”I haven’t done a whole lot of reacting,” she says, and continues to eye at Michael—she can see the disapproval written on her features.

It’s the lack thereof that’s bothering her. Her father speaks up. “How long have you known each other?”

”We sort of knew each other in high school,” he says. “Before graduation.” He turns to glance at her. “She was just about the prettiest girl in my class.”

She giggles. Her mother’s frowning and it makes her stop—silence stretches on for a few beats before her father asks, “What do you do, Michael? For a living?”

”I work at my father’s shop, across town,” he says and reaches for Mamiko’s hand. He squeezes it gently.

”His father was a mechanic,” she adds.

”My mother was taking care of it for awhile, while he was away in the war, but he’s back now—work’s good. Good pay, good job.”

Her mother’s frown has only deepened. “...Mamiko, where on Earth did you find this man?”

She shrugged in response.

”Found her at a party,” he said. “And drove her home afterwards.”

Alarm bleeds into her mother’s voice. “You were in his _car?_ ”

She can feel her face heat up. “We didn’t do anything,” she says. “He just drove me, so I wouldn’t have to walk—and it was just, it was one night, you know I’m not going to be doing anything like that again.”

”No,” her mother says. “Because you intend to marry some-some—“ She gestures wildly to Michael, clearly struggling to come up with a word to describe her unjustified hatred of him. “I can’t believe you’d just—“ She takes a step back, raises a fist up to her mouth. “...I think I’m gonna be sick.”

It’s a bit much, really—she has a boyfriend, she’s going steady with a nice man her age, she doesn’t know why her mother’s freaking out, but she knows that when her mom gets like this, there’s no fixing it. “Michael, I think you should leave.”

Michael blinks, looks at her like he’s going to argue, but then he nods. “Alright, doll—I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

She nods, eagerly—she’s already started counting the minutes until she sees Michael again. Her mother watches Michael leave, hatred burning in her eyes before she turns on her heel and marches to her bedroom. Mamiko blinks and looks up at her father. “Did I do something?” She asks—she feels like she’s a little girl again, believing her father has all the answers, but once again, he’s just shrugging warily.

”Maybe don’t worry about it, honey,” he says. “You know your mother, she’s just... frustrated. With the world.”

She guesses she gets it. Her mother and her are both pretty isolated in this town—her mother never even leaves the house. She basically only has the husband she loathes to speak with, and he disappears for extended periods of time. Who else does she have? Her _daughter?_

She supposes, at least, now, she hypothetically has her parents and Michael, and... that’s about it.

...But Michael seems happy to have her at least. Michael seems to like her.

That night, her parents get into another fight.

Her mother’s spent a long time in her bedroom, and when she leaves to get a glass of water, her father stands in the doorway so she can’t leave, so she has to talk with him.

It wouldn’t be the first time Mamiko spends the night in the attic, listening to the radio and waiting for them to stop. Her parents have gone all night before—but really, she likes the attic.

It’s dark, cold so she just buries herself in blankets and sits on the floor, and reads that old book about serial killers. It’s her favorite way to get to sleep—grizzly stories about the past, illuminated in a large column of yellow light from a flashlight thrown haphazardly into the attic ages ago that still works—one of these days, it probably won’t anymore, but it has yet to come.

For now, it just sort of flickers. A lot. She slams the head of it into the heel of her palm a couple times, and that gets it working, and then it dims, darkens, lights back up brighter, dims, lights up. Honestly, it helps with the atmosphere—if she wasn’t up here, she’d just be in bed, staring at the ceiling and waiting for sleep to take her somewhere far away from her parents’ shouting.

...A part of her thinks she should do that. Suffer quietly in her bedroom, because it’s what she deserves—this is her fault. She made her mother upset. And if her mother hadn’t been upset, then her father wouldn’t have gone to talk to her, and then they wouldn’t be fighting like this, this is her fault.

Her parents would be happier without her. Maybe with her sister instead, had she survived that fever that took her out, or maybe just childless. She doesn’t think her mother ever actually wanted children.

...Mamiko still didn’t understand how she had survived that fever when her sister didn’t. Dumb luck? Her mother once joked that it killed her sister and most of Mamiko’s brain cells when they had been cooking in the kitchen, listening to the radio that wasn’t in the attic. “ _Probably why you’re so stupid, dear,_ ” she had said—her smile hadn’t reached her eyes. Mamiko wasn’t sure if that was how fevers worked, but what did she know about medicine?

Their shouting gets louder—the radio cuts out. A spark of panic ignites in her chest, because she doesn’t want to hear this, she doesn’t want to hear them fight, she knows it was her own fault, she doesn’t need them to remind her.

She messes with the dials again on the radio, frowns. There’s a click, nothing but quiet static, she can hear her parents clear as day.

Her mother is seething, rage seeps into her voice. “ _I wish you’d leave again and never come back!_ ”

Her father’s always leaving—and sometimes, it feels like her mother wishes it’d be the last time he leaves, one way or another. Is it normal for parents to be unable to stand each other? Have they always been like this? 

Her father’s voice has an edge of panic she’s never heard. _“Come on, just calm down—_ “

The radio starts working again, familiar voices filling the silence of the attic. The noise covers up the _**CRASH**_ from the kitchen.

When Mamiko wakes up in the morning, the radio’s still going—when she looks in the kitchen, half expecting to see her parents slumped over, having fallen asleep in the middle of their fights again, she doesn’t find her parents, but a puddle of blood, smeared across the linoleum and shattered glass.

Michael holds the door open for her when she gets out of the car (leaves the flask he almost definitely shouldn’t have on the sea), and when they enter the diner, and he orders for her—like a gentleman. She’s never had anyone fuss over her like this, and she loves the attention more than she think she should, so she makes a mental note to not let it get to her head.

Michael’s kindness almost distracts her from how tired she is—it was a fitful rest in that attic. She remembers bits and pieces of dreams—something to do with that deal she made with Alastor, she knows, and... something with spiders? And mice?

...She never _has_ been fond of vermin, she supposes.

”You okay, doll?” Michael asks—he looks at her, like she’s everything. It makes her heart skip a beat.

”Just tired,” she responds, looking up at him from her coffee. It’s bitter and gross, coats her tongue and burns her lips—is that how it’s waking her up, by burning the fatigue out of her from the inside out? “Sorry about last night—I didn’t think they’d get like that, I don’t know what was wrong with my mother, but I don’t think she meant anything, I’m sorry she was kind of rude to you.”

Michael smiles, gently. “Don’t worry about that. Was everything okay after I left?”

No. She spent the morning mopping up blood with her mother, sweeping up glass. She kept asking whose blood it was she was cleaning, but her mother had been strangely silent. She had refused to meet Mamiko’s eyes. She knows either her father hurt her mother (she wouldn’t be surprised...) or her mother hurt her father (also not a surprise), but she doesn’t know how bad. The fact that her father’s left again doesn’t help—it didn’t feel like there was enough warning before his departure. Did he leave because he did something?

...Did he leave because her mother did something?

”...More or less, Mike,” she says. “Thing is... my mother...” She trails off—does she really want to tell him too much? She swears up and down, she’d tell Michael anything, but... what if this scares him off?

What about the deal she made with Alastor? Is it void if Michael runs away from her and her deranged family before they can ever tie the knot? Does she still need to hand over her soul in the afterlife if that happens? Or will it not happen because of the deal?

It’s like Michael’s read her mind—somewhere, there’s a pop of static in the diner, but she doesn’t know where it comes from. “Don’t worry, doll,” he says. “Just wait until you meet _my_ mother.”

She smiles weakly. “She alright?” Michael doesn’t talk much about his family, just wants to hear about her—but Mamiko knows she cares about Michael and his family, so now’s a good as time as any to learn about them.

His shoulders rise into a shrug. “She’s crazy—oh, when she figures out I’m going steady with a Jap, she’s gonna _flip._ ”

...That is not reassuring. “Really?”

”Yeah,” Michael said. “She thought all of them should be thrown into those camps—sometimes it’s kind of difficult to blame her, just about all my relatives on her side of the family were killed in the war, doll, so she’s been a bit hysterical, ever since it ended. She can’t seem to move past it.”

She thinks that’s a hint of pity in her chest for Michael’s mother—but now she doesn’t think she wants to meet that woman. What if she _hates_ Mamiko? Enough to forbid Michael from seeing her? She hopes she never has to find out. “Those camps were terrible,” Mamiko says. “My family got lucky. I don’t even know how...”

”Maybe we should stop talking about it, doll,” he says. “It’s over—the war’s over, and everyone can... sorta move on with their lives.”

She shrugs. “Never felt like I had a life to begin with, in all honesty.” The past few years felt more like a blurry nightmare than anything. The idea of it being over is appealing, since she never really stayed up to date on what was happening unless her parents brought it up, mentioned something—too focused on school and stuff, and keeping her head down. “...It’s a good thing it’s over.”

Michael smiles brightly at her still—if he’s noticed that Mamiko smells like bleach and dried blood, he hasn’t said anything about it.

...That singular pop of static rings in her head, but doesn’t haunt her as much as the scent blood does throughout the rest of the afternoon.


End file.
